In Part 1 Bill Verrall looked at the rise of extremist groups in Pakistan and the fact that most were funded and equipped by the USA with the support of Pakistan. Today he looks at the internal politics of the USA which lay behind the foreign policy changes in the 1980s and 1990s which lead to the complete dominance of Neo-Conservative policy in US foreign relations. This domination resulted in the creation of groups such as the Taliban.
In many respects these ‘freedom fighters’, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and a myriad of other groups, were the illegitimate children of a group of very conservative American leaders who had struggled during the Ford and Carter presidencies to establish a truly conservative American world view. Given that their world view was not the prevalent view of that time this group became known as “Team B”. Team B included some very powerful people but more importantly as time progressed, through its proselytizing, it was able to involve others and eventually this lead directly to the dominant “neo conservative” (neo-con) philosophy of the 20th century.
At its inception the group included University of Chicago professor and RAND corporation theorist Albert Wohlstetter, Harvard Professor of Czarist history Richard Pipes, Lt General Daniel Graham, Dr Thomas Wolfe of RAND, General John Vogt, Ambassador Fay Kohler, Paul Nitz, Ambassador Seymour Weiss, Maj General Jasper Welsh of the USAF, and Paul Wolfowitz. Their common belief was that the Soviet Union was hugely powerful and growing in power at such a rate as to be able to physically threaten the USA. In line with that fundamental belief the group despised the concept of Détente and sought to destroy it, and with it, the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties. The group did not believe that a nuclear war was unwinnable and sought to reignite the strategic arms race. It also sought to weaken Russia in any way possible and at any cost. It is a testament to the perseverance and power of this group that nearly all of its goals were achieved.
Initially Team B’s most powerful acolyte came to be Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski used his position as National Security Advisor to undermine Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and to turn the initially moderate foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter into a virulently anti-Russian policy. When Ronald Regan assumed the presidency in 1981 the beliefs of Team B began their rapid rise in ascendancy, to point where through the 1990s and into the first decade of the 21st century these policies became de rigueur across all political spectrums in the USA.
Interesting though the story of the rise and rise of Team B and the Neo Cons is, it is the effect of this policy shift and its direct causal relationship with today’s terrorist groups that is immediately relevant to this discussion.
Under Brzezinski, Team B worked to isolate the USSR in every way possible way. Their greatest success was in preventing Russia from negotiating a peaceful solution to the Afghan crisis of 1979-80. By preventing a diplomatic solution to the crisis they were able to instill such a degree of panic in the Soviet Politburo that eventually the Soviet leadership ordered Soviet troops to invade Afghanistan. Prior to the invasion the Soviet’s own intelligence agencies had reported that such a war would be unwinnable and would be an economic, military and political disaster for the Soviet Union. Brzezinski publicly acknowledged the role the USA played in drawing the Russians into Afghanistan. Brzezinski is quoted as saying “We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would”. He is also quoted as telling President Carter “Now we can give the USSR its Vietnam war”.
His motivation was the knowledge that once the Soviets became embroiled in Afghanistan then America would then be able to support the Islamic opposition and ensure that the Soviets suffered a military defeat without America being overtly involved.
As a tactic it was brilliant. The Soviet invasion was a disaster. As Brzezinski had foreseen, when he referred to making Afghanistan the Soviet Vietnam, the Soviets became beleaguered in a country ideally suited to guerrilla warfare.
There will always be debate as to the extent America “led” Russia (The USSR) into Afghanistan. What there is no doubt about is the jubilation in the American camp as it foresaw Russia walking into what they dubbed “their Vietnam”. America immediately set about funding the Islamic groups that sprung up to fight the Russian Bear. Whilst the Taliban has come to be the most well known of these groups it was not alone. A host of groups were formed during the 80s and 90s and despite amalgamations, splits, mergers and disintegrations most of these group still exist in some form today.
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami are but two such groups. Today they are have a greater degree of independence from the Pakistan army and Pakistan government then they did at the time of their inception.
For many years now there has been real doubt that the Army or the intelligence services could regain control of these groups. The most recent attack on an ISI post in Lahore clearly shows the extent to which the client-patron relationship no longer exists. The USA cannot ignore these groups. They have the ability to destroy US armed intervention in Afghanistan just as they did the Soviet intervention. The USA is therefore attempting to split the groups into two factions, one of which will support it in its war in Afghanistan. (It is interesting to note that one of the possible allied groups is a major portion of the Taliban which only a decade ago was recognised as the scourge of freedom, democracy, modernity and women’s rights.) At the same time as the USA pursues its policy of divide and rule, the Pakistan government and army are forced into a struggle they had long sought to avoid, namely a struggle to reassert their authority over the extremist groups they had previously either actively supported or complicity encouraged.
Thus the the current fighting (pre flood) in the Swat Valley, Waziristan and Baluchistan is a far from simple affair. Just which groups of Islamist are being attacked is not publicly recognised. How other groups are responding to this is not known. The extent to which any army victory is merely window dressing as either the insurgents retreat and regroup in good order, or as they retreat at the request of the ISI or army so that the current flow of US money and arms can continue, it is currently very difficult to ascertain.
The only thing certain is that Brzezinski’s and the Neo Cons’ policy of radicalizing Islamic groups in the 1980s and 1990s has certainly come home to roost.
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Bill Verrall graduated from Canterbury with a Master in History and Political Science in 1972. He then pursued a career in Education. His last 20 years were as Principal of Fiordland College in Te Anau. He resigned in 2008. He currently spends his time attempting to outthink trout on the waters of Fiordland, reading, and working as a summer ranger for the Department of Conservation.
Tags: Afghanistan, Neoconservatism, Pakistan, Zbigniew Brzezinski
If Team B is so brilliant what is the USA doing embroiled in its own second Vietnam style war in Afghanistan? or perhaps as your last few paras indicate do they back themselves to be so clever as to be able to win a Vietnam style war (‘assymetric warfare’) now that they understand them better?
A good question Why construct failure for someone else and then do it yourself?
Firstly the success days of ‘team B’ were the 80s and 90 and the world has changed dramatically since then in the geoploitical sense. Secondly America would have seen itself as having few choices after 9/11 From their point of view they had to do something!
Initialy they had success upon their invasion of Afghanistan. However the success was an illusion The Taliban refused to fight on America’s terms and simply dissolved back into the hills- and more importantly back into Pakistan Afghanistan provided Obama with an excuse to exit the absolute disaster of Iraq, however, even at that stage it was never going to be a winnable war Over the last two years this has become obvious and the tracking of this can be seen in US policy. No one in a position of power in America believes they can win the war. What America is desperately doing, is trying to find an exit strtategy. At the moment this seems to revolve around 1 a continuing war of attrition against al Queda and 2 a desperate attempt to find some sort of ally or alliance they can arm and then leave in Afghanistan. So important is this that the once unthinkable option of accepting the Taliban as rulers is no longer out of the question. America is now looking for ‘acceptable’ Taliban with whom they might negotiate (as opposed to ‘unacceptable’ Taliban with whom they wont negotiate) The USA knows it cannot win this war. To win this war it must have a reliable and trust worthy ally in Pakistan and that is just so far from possible as to be politically unthinkable. To win it it must have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground for many years- and that is politically unthinkable.To win it must poor billions of dollars of reconstruction money into Afghanistan to sustain their victory after they leave. None of this will happen
American planners are deperatly looking for an exit strategy The recent shuffle of the top commander made that very public
Osama bi Laden was unbelievable sucessful in dragging America into a war it did not want to get involved in. It is hard to think of one individual. as opposed to one individual leading a government or army. who has ever had such an effect on a superpower.
In relation to this two important questions spring to mind. Firstly “What is the price of Human life?” Or should that question be reconstructed as “What is the price of other human lives that equal 3,000 American lives?” Is there a ratio, say 100 Afghans to one US civilian? In which case the important question would be “Who decides?”
Secondly “What happens when America leaves?” Will ‘the Left’, ‘Humanitarians’, the UN, ‘Liberals’, ‘Feminists’ all be calling for foreign intervention to fix the disaster that could be Afghanistan in 2015.
Will comment more later – there’s pizza needs eating…
But you’ve struck on the major chord of my MA. I looked at the fight over Missile Estimates during the 1990s to justify continuing with National Missile Defense. In many important respects (including many of the people involved) it was a re-run of the A Team/ B Team fights of preceding decades.
Don’t, for the love of god, get me started about Iraq’s WMD…
Bill,
See my comments on “part one”.
I think the key person you fail to mention in this narrative is Don Rumsfeld. He was SECDEF when the competitive estimates from the A-Team/B-Team era were begun, and his career since is, I think, at least as important as Brezinzki’s in getting the US into trouble.
Agreed